The colonel visibly reined in his surprise, and just as
he opened his mouth to speak, a beautiful raven-haired
woman stepped through the hatch, moving as smoothly
and precisely as the machines that had preceded her.
With her delicate features and feminine grace, she was
the last thing anyone would have expected to find in the
company of the two hulking metal centurions.
She glanced at the lieutenant, gave him the subtlest
of winks, and said, “Hello, sleepyhead.” Then she focused
only on the colonel, whose mouth still hung half-open,
and sat down across from him at the small conference table.
She smiled a coquettish smile that made the lieutenant
more uncomfortable than the realization that she and her
mechanical escorts had been looming over him as he slept.
The colonel smiled back at her. It was an awkward gesture,
the kind of nervous yet willing smile a teenager on his
first date might produce.
The strange woman reached across the table, softly
cupped the colonel’s chin and kissed him tenderly on the
lips.
Despite the surreal circumstances, the lieutenant found
himself wondering if the man’s reclusive tendencies ran
much deeper than he would have previously believed.
He had the sudden yet unshakable conviction that this
was as close as he had ever gotten to a member of the
opposite sex.
When the woman pulled back, all traces of her smile
were gone, as was her overt flirtatiousness. She gazed
into the colonel’s eyes with an air of perplexity. "Are
you alive?" she asked.
"Yes." From the look on the colonel’s face, it seemed
he was not just automatically responding to the obvious,
but making a conscious decision. “Yes, I’m alive.”
"Prove it."
She rose fluidly from her chair, glided over to where he
sat and pulled him into a sensual embrace, her hands
slipping nimbly under his shirt. The colonel did not
resist. His hands, in contrast to hers, moved fumblingly,
exploring areas of the feminine form they had no doubt
never before encountered.
As the lieutenant watched them helplessly, a muffled
explosion shook the walls, and he knew instinctively that
the transport was no more.
At the sound of the blast, the colonel appeared to come
back to himself. He struggled to free himself from the
woman’s grasp, but her arms were clamped around him
snugly, pinning his own arms to his sides with an unnatural
strength. She tightened her grip, and his face contorted
with agony, and perhaps also with the bitter realization
that his life was ending even as it had just begun.
When the horrible sound of snapping bones filled the room,
the woman’s smile returned. But it was a new smile, one
all to herself.
As he had done in his dream, the lieutenant shivered,
then ran.
He knew that he had no chance of making it past the two
Cylons, knew that he had seen the faces of his wife
and son for the last time. But in that final instant, he took
comfort in the fact that he had known them at all, and that
he had lived before he died.
Then the room, and the station around it, tore itself apart
in a massive concussion of sound and flame.
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